Spotlights

Glazier, Hall members of new class of Faculty Engaged Scholars

Two faculty members from the School of Education – Jocelyn Glazier and Leigh Hall – are among the 10 UNC-Chapel Hill faculty members recently selected by the Carolina Center for Public Service as the fourth class of the Faculty Engaged Scholars program.

The FES program is an initiative of the Center to advance faculty involvement in the scholarship of engagement. During the two-year program, scholars learn about engaged scholarship, possible funding sources, navigating disciplinary expectations while addressing community needs, and partnering with local communities in North Carolina and beyond.

The FES program promotes the engaged scholarship across a variety of disciplines and helps to create and sustain a community of engaged scholars from diverse perspectives. The program is committed to building UNC-Chapel Hill as an institution dedicated to and demonstrating strong university-community relationships.

Every other year, eight to 10 faculty members are selected to participate in the program aimed at learning about and pursuing community engagement through their scholarly endeavors.

Glazier, an associate professor and chair of the School’s Professional Leadership and Practice division, conducts research focusing exploring the impact of experiential pedagogy on teacher and student learning, particularly with regard to minority populations.

In a new project, Glazier is working with teachers in high-need districts to develop teacher collaboratives (TCs), spaces where teachers work with one another to study experiential teaching and learning in their own classrooms. In addition to honing practice, teachers in TCs learn together how to assess the impact of these approaches on their students and learn how to share their findings with colleagues and stakeholders, empowering both each other and their students in the process. Glazier’s hope is that TCs become the spaces that foster school transformation and halt the trend of teacher attrition in high-need schools.

Hall, associate professor of literacy studies, addresses issues relevant to adolescents’ literacy development and particularly those that have been labeled as having reading difficulties. Her work suggests that students with reading difficulties are interested in school, like to read, and are highly motivated to improve their reading abilities and to learn academic content.

Hall believes an important factor in helping these students find success is to disrupt and reconfigure the educational experiences they receive. Her current project focuses on helping teachers engage in such practices and will document their experiences as they do so.

The Carolina Center for Public Service offers a variety of programs that support service and engagement, providing students, faculty and staff many ways to explore service opportunities, learn new skills and link their academic endeavors to making a difference in communities across North Carolina and beyond. For details about the Center’s programs and activities, visit www.unc.ecu/ccps.